Liberty Pinwheel Brooch

With Independence Day just a week away, I thought I’d whip together a quick & festive craft to share with you: The Liberty Pinwheel Brooch, or Libby Pin for short! Wear one to your July 4th picnic or make some to hand out as ribbons to the winner of the 3-legged race or the egg-toss!

This will be a words-only tutorial since it is pretty straightforward. You’ll need small scraps of felt, fabric, fusible webbing, ribbon trims, a button, and a pin back. Grab scissors, a needle, thread, a marking tool, a ruler, an iron and some craft glue, too.

The following instructions are for the brooch shown above with the blue button in the center. *See notes at the end for the other version. Please read through all of the steps before beginning.

1) Draw a 4″ square on the paper side of a piece of fusible webbing. Create an X in the center by drawing diagonal lines from corner to corner. Cut along the lines to make 4 small triangles.

2) Fuse 2 webbing triangles to the wrong side of a piece of print fabric and 2 triangles to the wrong side of a second print fabric. Cut out the fabric triangles following the edge of the webbing’s paper backing.

3) Peel the paper backing off of the four fabric triangles and arrange them, alternating prints, webbing side down, onto a piece of felt. Align the points of the right angles together to recreate the 4″ square. Using a hot iron, fuse the triangles to the felt.

4) Trim away excess felt around the perimeter of the fused fabric square. Next, cut diagonally through the felt square, from each corner where the fabric triangles meet, stopping 1/2″ away from the center. DO NOT cut all the way to the center of the square.

5) Thread a needle with a double strand and knot the end. With the fabric side facing up, bring the needle up through the center of the square. One at a time, pull one corner of each triangle towards the center and tack it into place with a few stitches. Alternate corners so that it creates a pinwheel effect.

6) Embellish the center with a felt circle (fringed by snipping the edge) and a button. Hand sew through all layers.

7) Cut several trims to a 7-8″ length. Arrange them on to the back of the pinwheel, with about 1/3 of the length sticking up above the pinwheel. Hand tack into place with needle and thread.

8) Cut a small diamond shape out of felt. Snip 2 small slits, open the bar pin, and pass the ends of the pin through the slits. Apply glue to the back of the felt diamond and press it onto the back of the pinwheel, sandwiching the bar part of the pin back.

* For the red brooch with the cherry print, the square I began with was 5″. Also, I did not cut the square of webbing apart into four triangles. I fused the whole square to the cherry print fabric, then cut into the square along the diagonal lines after I fused it to the felt.

I hope you enjoyed this tutorial and are able to make a few for the holiday! Please let me know if any of the instructions are unclear and I’ll do my best to clarify.